


When You See It

by aliKAZAM



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-08-19 11:43:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8205188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliKAZAM/pseuds/aliKAZAM
Summary: George starts to see Hermione in a new light, but will she do the same? Set during Goblet of Fire but will extend up until and possibly after the war. This is my first fic so don't worry about being nice but please read and review, constructive criticism is appreciated. (Being reposted and started back up after hiatus).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started this work back in high school and then life happened. I'm back at it now, but have to fit writing in between college and everything else. Please review lots and often, I find them super motivating, good or bad.

**Chapter 1:**

 

"This is it," whispered Fred, giving the final warning as he moved to push open the doors, "no turning back now."

 George took a deep breath. Nerves were not something he was familiar with, but he sure as hell felt them now. He knew the stakes. With Bagman refusing to pay them their winnings from the World Cup, the boys were racing to gain the money needed to fund their business. If they didn't get the cash, and get it soon, all those months of work would be sent spiraling straight down the tube. Entry in the Triwizard Tournament was a last ditch effort and if it failed they were back to square one.

 " _Get it together,"_ he chided, catching himself, " _if anyone can pull this off it's the two of you."_ With one final shake of his head to lose the tendrils of doubt that were beginning to take root, he squared his shoulders, pasted on a wide grin and moved quickly to follow his twin inside.

"Well lads, we've done it," called Fred to the mass of students gathered in the hall.

 "Cooked it up just this morning," chimed George, winking at the audience with much more confidence than he truly felt.

 His trepidation vanished immediately, however, with the reaction of the crowd. Their cheers and rising excitement brought out the side of him that would always rise to a challenge, costs be damned. That's what he loved the most about the pranks and gags pulled throughout the years. That rush of adrenaline, the feeling of no consequences…at least until they got caught. He felt his spirits rising with the noise level.

 Amid the din in the hall, one clear voice stood from the rest.

 "It's not going to wo-ork" came the mocking, sing-song tone of Hermione Granger.

 With a quick glance it was decided that the twins would hold off their plan momentarily, if only to irritate the younger witch. Hermione was one of their favorite opponents for, in addition to holding a spot in the Weasley family, which in itself granted her an additional serving of pranking and ridicule, she held an intelligence level up to par with their own. Abruptly the twins changed course, moving in unison to swoop down to her level, flanking her on either side.

 "Oh yeah?" questioned Fred.

 "And why's that Granger?" continued George, noticing for the first time the light sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of Hermione's nose. " _What a strange thing to be thinking about at a time like this_ " he thought to himself, still transfixed on those tiny little specks of gold. " _Wait!"_ he thought, mentally shaking himself out of his momentary stupor, " _She was mocking us. That's why I'm over here in the first place!"_ He came to mid argument, catching only part of what had been said.

 "…couldn't possibly be fooled by a dodge as pathetically dim-witted as an Aging Potion," she finished.

 "Ah, but that's why it's so brilliant!" shot Fred, clearly not noticing his twin's lapse in concentration.

 "Because it's so pathetically _dim_ -witted!" added George, hoping to Merlin that his reply made sense within the banter. Fred chuckled. He was safe, at least for the time being.

 Standing quickly, needing to put some distance between himself and Granger before he did something dumb, George decided it was time to put the plan into action.

 "Ready Fred?" he asked.

 "Ready George," came the reply.

 Their united, "Bottoms up!" rang out within the hall. Interlocking arms, the twins downed their individual potions, and, as one, hopped across the age line.

 For a split second there was nothing. Then, all at once, they were nearly deafened by the cheers. " _We've done it,"_ thought George, " _We've actually done it!"_ He and Fred made their celebratory rounds with grins and high-fives, accepting their much due praise. Every face in the crowd was sporting a smile, every face but one. Granger. Why should her skepticism bother him? He'd never cared what she thought before now. And yet, for some reason, the fact that the younger witch didn't approve of his actions was causing a bit of a niggling itch in the back of his mind.

 Deciding they had wasted enough time already, George moved in towards the goblet. Fred caught on quickly and together they tossed their names into the flame. Again cheers echoed in the hall but this time it seemed the celebration had come too soon. Tongues of blue flame leapt from the cup, knocking the twins flying out of the ring and skidding across the floor. Sitting up, they gazed at each other in horror as large white beards began to sprout from their jaws.

 "YOU SAID!"

 "NO, YOU SAID!"

 Anger. Despair. Doubt. Emotions wreaking havoc within George's mind, and apparently Fred's as well. The two broke out in a fist fight rolling around on the floor, pushing the blame on the other. Their fight instead of their triumph became the center of attention within the hall until, over the cries coming from the tangle of limbs on the ground, there was the sound of a creaking door opening.

Looking up from where he lay sprawled across the floor, George was the first to see the group of Durmstrang students led in by Viktor Krum. All noise stopped. No one moved as one by one the Bulgarians dropped their names into the goblet. From his vantage point on the ground, George saw Krum make eye contact with Hermione before turning on his heel and exiting with a slight swirl of his maroon cape. George, for the life of him, could not determine why the slight blush that tinted Hermione's cheeks as she glanced back down at the thick book in her lap caused a slight twinge in his chest. Perhaps he was feeling protective. She had been his brother's best friend for the past 3 years and she had stayed with them during the World Cup.

 " _That must be it,_ " he thought, " _I think of her like I would Ginny. If some hulking Bulgarian looked at my sister that way I would definitely have something to say on the subject._ "

Except, those freckles he noticed earlier were really nothing at all like the orange spots on Ginny's face and his throat was tightening in a way that it never had when he felt the call to adapt into overprotective older brother mode. But as soon as his thoughts began to move down this strange path, he found himself ripped back to reality by the arrival of Professor McGonagall and, due to the loss in concentration as the twins found themselves being dragged across the castle by their ears, George forgot about his strange thoughts on facial pigmentation, at least the time being.


	2. Chapter 2

Hermione slid breathlessly into the seat between Harry and Ron. A box of brightly colored pins rattled loudly as she dropped it jerkily on the table in front of her. From his spot across the table, George observed absently that her face was flushed from exertion or excitement, or perhaps a mixture of the two. He couldn’t help but notice how alive she looked with that faint blush of pink coloring her caramel toned skin, making the adorable sprinkle of freckles across her nose and cheeks stand out even more than usual. Her molten chocolate eyes sparkled in the same way they did when she was telling him and Fred off for one of their various alleged misdoings. 

He could see her chest rising and falling rapidly beneath her jumper with each breath she took, her mocha curls even more tousled than usual from her rushed trek across the castle. Her piercing gaze met his for a moment and she smiled slightly in recognition before turning back to her friends. A rush of warmth flooded into George’s chest and the corners of his mouth began to turn up of their own volition.

George was suddenly jostled out of his reverie by the arrival of Fred who leaped over the bench, shaking the entire table as he slammed into the open seat to George’s right.

“Hope it’s Angelina,” said Fred, in greeting, not even turning to look at his twin or the trio of younger students across from them.

“So do I!” Hermione responded, smirking at the glazed, dreamy look in Fred’s eyes as he stared at the beautiful girl laughing with her friends a bit further up the table from them. George simply rolled his eyes at the obvious infatuation his brother was illustrating for all the world to see. 

“As if I would ever be that obvious about liking a girl! He has completely lost his marbles over that girl,” thought George, who was truly getting a little tired of Angelina being the only topic Fred ever wanted to discuss. 

When he refocused on the table, he realized that Hermione was looking at him and doing her best to keep from laughing outright, her fist pushing against her mouth with her elbow on the table. George wiggled both eyebrows at her, causing her to snort in a way that he most definitely should not have found to be cute in any way. 

The rest of the feast passed relatively uneventfully, Harry and Ron at one point retelling their encounter with Hagrid and his excessive cologne usage, while Hermione looked on, shaking her head ruefully at the ridiculousness of the situation. 

Silence fell almost instantly as the food vanished from the tables, each and every student waiting in anticipation to see what names the flaming goblet would spit out. Dumbledore stood and made his way toward the goblet saying, “Well, the goblet is almost ready to make its decision. I estimate that it requires one more minute.”

George noted amusedly that Hermione’s eyes rolled back in her head for a moment at the headmaster’s ridiculous estimation. “Now, when the champions’ names are called,” he continued, “I would ask them please to come up to the top of the hall, walk along the staff table, and go through into the next chamber where they will be receiving their first instructions.” 

I headmaster then extinguished nearly all the lights in the hall, leaving the Goblet of Fire shining more brightly than anything else, its blueish-white flames leaping and dancing across its brim, too bright to look at for any large length of time. You could hear a pin drop. Tensions were running high. 

“Any second,” Lee whispered loudly into George’s ear, startling him so badly he nearly fell out of his seat. A covert glance at Hermione revealed she missed the whole incident. George let out a tiny sigh of relief, before turning his eyes back to the blinding goblet. 

Suddenly, the flames turned blood red and began to spark violently. A tongue of fire shot into the air, leaving a charred piece of parchment fluttering in its wake. Dumbledore snatched the parchment from the air and, reading by the now blue tinted light from the goblet announced, “The champion for Durmstrang, will be Viktor Krum.”

“No surprises there!” yelled Ron in full support of his idol, struggling to be heard over the waves of applause and cheering booming throughout the hall. George felt a slight twinge of nausea when he saw a wide smile gracing Hermione’s face, reaching all the way to her eyes, as she clapped her hands rapidly in support of the Bulgarian hulk who was lurching awkwardly toward the head table. 

Silence fell once again as the flames darkened to scarlet, signaling the selection of the second contestant. Grabbing the scorched parchment from the air, Dumbledore called, “The champion for Beauxbatons, is Fleur Delacour!” 

While the two boys next to her focused on the ethereal blonde gracefully ascending the stairs to reach the champions’ assigned room, Hermione found her gaze drawn to the Beauxbaton students left at the table. The French students seemed utterly distraught, several girls dissolving into tears right there at the Ravenclaw table. “Look,” she commented to Harry on her right, “they’re all disappointed.” 

Hermione found herself wondering if there had been some sort of reward offered for the student selected, something beyond merely the ability to compete. Or worse, perhaps there was an academic detriment for not being chosen. “Not a whole lot of school unity going on at Beauxbatons it would seem,” she thought absently to herself. 

When the goblet turned red a third time Hermione felt herself stop breathing entirely, literally holding her breath in anticipation. 

“The Hogwarts champion,” announced Dumbledore with his eyes twinkling merrily, “is Cedric Diggory!”

Hermione laughed, grinning widely as every single Hufflepuff leapt to their feet, screaming at the top of their lungs in support of Cedric. Cedric, looking equal parts trilled, terrified, and embarrassed, made his way to the front of the hall.

“Good,” she thought to herself, “Hufflepuff deserves to win something for once. Utterly ridiculous that Slytherin and Gryffindor seem to always be neck in neck for everything. And having a champion from a neutral house will go a long way to promoting inter-house unity. For the duration of the tournament at least…” 

Hermione was still lost in her thoughts, completely ignoring whatever goodwill speech Dumbledore was making when the goblet turned a brilliant red for a fourth time. 

“Bollocks,” thought Hermione, as a wave of dread swept through her body. Experience told her, as much as she would love to ignore it, that when something strange and potentially life-threatening occurred, it always involved Harry. She turned to the dark haired boy next to her who, looking just as confused as everyone else, had obviously not yet reached the same conclusion she had. 

Beginning to feel panic well up from deep inside her gut, Hermione began to shift her gaze toward Ron on her other side, in a desperate hope that he might share her growing apprehension, only to match eyes with George sitting opposite her before she made the full turn. 

George did not know what about the goblet changing colors a fourth time had made Hermione’s chocolate colored eyes widen so dramatically, but he recognized the terror on her face and felt himself begin to share in her dread. In unison they turned to face the head table just in time to hear Dumbledore clear his throat and say with an apparent lack of emotion, “Harry Potter.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Thank you so much for reading this piece, especially those who of you who were he back in my junior year of high school when I started the story. Senior year and freshman year of college took a lot out of me and I am just now finally getting back into writing in general. Like I said in the bio, please always comment, good or bad, I need the feedback and if you have any plot suggestions or cute George/Hermione moments you would like to see incorporated, please let me know. Until next time (after I finish my 3 papers I have assigned). – Rhonnie


	3. Chapter 3

Hermione felt her heart stop for an instant and, as her vision started to swim, she realized she should probably try to start breathing again. She turned toward Harry, knowing just how much her best friend would need support right now, and saw his usually expressive face completely devoid of any emotion. 

“I didn’t put my name in,” Harry said blankly to both her and Ron. “You know I didn’t.”

Hermione’s heart twisted painfully in her chest. Of course she knew he didn’t put his name in. Even if he could have, which he couldn’t, he definitely wouldn’t have wanted to. And yet, for some reason, Hermione could find absolutely no words to comfort him in that moment, for her mind was already spinning at full speed trying to figure out exactly who could possibly have it out for Harry this year. Voldemort, obviously, but who put the actually name in the goblet? More importantly at the moment, how the hell was she going to get Harry through this damn tournament alive?

Hermione’s thoughts skidded to an abrupt halt as Dumbledore’s voice was made heard over the dim of suspicious rumblings of the great hall. 

“Harry Potter!” Dumbledore called again. “Harry! Up here, if you please!”

Knowing that prolonging the inevitable would help absolutely no one at this point, Hermione nudged Harry softly and whispered “Go on. “ 

He rose and walked towards the front of the hall as if in a trance. Hermione watched until she saw his dark messy hair vanish into the next room. Then she felt what little composure she had left slip away, and dropping her head to the table, resting her forehead on her arms. 

“Not again,” she moaned softly into the polished hard wood, already preparing herself for the trials to come. 

\- - -

“Harry Potter.”

George was dumbstruck to say the least. For a solid five seconds, he did nothing but stare at Dumbledore with his jaw hanging open, his brain feeling slightly like lukewarm oatmeal. Then Fred, never one to miss an opportunity, tried to poke George’s tongue causing him to recoil instinctively. George sent his twin an annoyed glare before turning to fully face the dark-haired boy who had apparently outsmarted Dumbledore. 

George could see Harry speaking quietly to his friends on either side, but George wasn’t able to hear much of anything over the growing mutters and grumbles echoing in the hall. Glancing at Hermione, he saw that for once the girl appeared to be at a loss, staring rather vacantly at a spot just above Harry’s left eyebrow. Dumbledore called Harry a second time, shaking Hermione from whatever she’d been focused on. George saw her whisper to the blank-faced boy while nudging him gently off the bench towards the front of the hall. 

He watched Hermione out of the corner of his eye as everyone else watched the Boy Who Lived make his way toward the other champions. How had he done it? He and Fred had worked for weeks trying to figure out the best strategy to enter the tournament, and Harry had said from the start that he had no interest at all in being a champion. Was that all an act? Had Harry had a plan from the beginning and just didn’t want to share his secrets? “No,” thought George, “Harry wouldn’t do that, he knows how important this was to us.” So if not that, then what the hell was actually going on?

Thwump. 

George was drawn from his increasingly confused train of thought by a strange hollow thud. Twisting to find the source of the noise, George became vaguely concerned to see Hermione with her head resting heavily on her folded arms, making quiet, indiscernible moans that were muffled by the table. 

A solid punch to his left arm, not hard enough to bruise, but certainly strong enough to deserve later retribution tore George away from the rather pathetic picture in front of him. 

“The fuck, Fred?” he swore angrily. 

“Oh don’t get your panties in a twist ya baby. How’d’ya think he did it? Took hours for us to get rid of those beards. Seems a bit rude by my estimation for him not to be sharing whatever insider information he obviously had to get in.” 

“Oh shove it. Just be glad it was Harry who beat it and not some Slytherin twat.”

“Fair point that,” conceded Fred with a nod.

The hall began to clear out rather quickly after that, McGonagall shooing the disgruntled students back to their common rooms with as much composure as she could muster. Communicating through a single raised, red eyebrow, the twins broke into a sprint after reaching the great wooden doors, one racing up the multiple flights towards Gryffindor tower to get music and festive decorations underway before the rest of the house arrived, the other tearing down a well-lit hallway towards the kitchens to charm the house elves out of a huge amount of leftover sweets from the feast. 

By the time Harry made it back to the common room, the party was in full swing, the Gryffindor’s grumbles having turned to a roaring house pride for their fellow lion’s supposed success. 

“Fucking Potter,” said Angelina, from her chair by the fire, an exasperated grin on her face. George smirked as he saw Fred attempting to slide stealthily onto the arm of her chair without her noticing. She noticed, and shoved Fred, sending him tumbling to the crimson rug. 

George snorted and decided to leave his love-struck twin to his own devices. 

\- - - 

To say that Hermione was frustrated with Ron would be an understatement. From the time McGonagall had told the students to vacate the hall to this very moment, Ron had not stopped talking. Or actually, to be more specific, Ron had not stopped complaining the entire way back, and for the entire party set up, and now for a good 45 minutes of the party, yelling over the blaring music and laughing voices. 

“I mean really. After four years you would think Ron would know his best friend better than this. As if Harry would want to be in this idiotic tournament in the first place. Come on Ron! Harry has people trying to kill him on nearly a daily basis, why in Merlin’s sparkly green tap shoes would Harry want to put himself in more danger.”

“…all I’m saying is that he’s already the Boy Who Lived, leave some glory for the rest of us for once!”

Hermione felt her patience beginning to thin. Her jaw tightened and her fists clenched in the folds of her skirt. Just then, the portrait swung open revealing a dark, messy head of hair, making Hermione sigh in relief. Ron stood abruptly and half walked, half stomped up the stairs to the boys’ dormitory. 

“Finally. I hope he isn’t too awful with Harry tonight, this is going to be stressful enough as it is,” Hermione sighed, sinking further into her chair, “Tomorrow is going to be awful.”

The common room seemed to shake the cheering was so loud and Harry was quickly grabbed by the Gryffindors nearest the portrait hole. Hermione saw Fred leap up from the rug in front of the fire and leap over to where Harry stood. 

“You should’ve told us you’d entered!” yelled Fred, trying to be heard over the rest of the house, eyes lit with partial pride, partial envy. 

George appeared at Fred’s elbow exclaiming, “How’d you do it without getting a beard? Brilliant!”

Hermione could see Harry was becoming more and more stressed with each passing minute, but could not find a way to force herself through the crowd surrounding him. Eventually, after about 15 minutes of trying, she gave up, deciding that her time would be better spent doing research on past tournaments so as to be prepared when she finally got a chance to talk to her best friend. 

“Harry’s dealt with much worse than a few overzealous classmates,” she mused to herself as she climbed the stairs toward her room, “He’ll be fine.”

\- - - 

As it turned out Hermione was correct. Harry was fine. Unfortunately, she was also correct in assuming that the next morning was going to be God awful. Ron had apparently not only assumed that harry wanted to be in the tournament, but that Harry did so for fame, money, and best of all, avoidance of final exams. “Really Ronald?!” And Harry, who really needs to take up boxing or some such thing, once again let his temper get the better of him. “Harry, you know better than this.” And Hermione, once again, found herself stuck in the middle. “Ugh.”

Hermione had gone down to breakfast early so she could stop by the library before trying to find Harry. She had run into Ron, who clearly was not any more enlightened about his friend’s personality than he had been the previous night, and had been stuck listening to him complain his was through a whole plate of eggs and bacon. Hermione ate a slice of toast with marmalade, nodding whenever he looked up at her. She stuck an apple in her bookbag and wrapped some toast up in a napkin for Harry before ducking out of the great hall as soon as she could get away. 

She met Harry as he rushed out of the common room looking, well, rather harried, and asked him if he wanted to go for a walk. She had done her best to explain Ron’s point of view from a psychological standpoint, drawing on a few texts she had read over the summer on the topic. Harry seemed to get at least part of what she was trying to tell him, but was determined not to be the extender of live branches, so to speak. He had at least agreed to write Sirius, with only minimal persuasion, which she supposed she should count as a win of sorts. 

Matters were only being made worse when classes started again on Monday. Hermione spent the whole week trying to make Ron and Harry speak to each other, a lesson in futility so it seemed, and doing her best to ignore the obvious tension between Harry and the other three houses. She was waking up early to get to the library, leaving only for classes, and returning to the common room only minutes before curfew, trying desperately to find any information that might help Harry make it to his 15th birthday. 

Overall, fourth year was shaping up to be the worst time of her life, expecting the several weeks of first year before the troll incident. 

\- - - 

George could tell there was something going on with his younger brother and his friends. Ron was consistently making the face he made when Mum asked him to de-gnome the garden, Harry appeared to have given up on brushing his hair entirely, that and he looked ready to punch just about anyone who tried to talk to him in the throat, and Hermione… 

Well, Hermione looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks. Her hair was pulled up with at least three quills in it at all times, he saw her running to class, books held to her chest, parchment barely staying in her bag, there were dark circles under her eyes, and he hadn’t seen her at dinner in nine days (he most definitely had not been counting, not at all). 

On the tenth day George found himself in the kitchens requesting for the houselves to bring Hermione a sandwich in the library (he did not allow himself to think too far into the reasoning behind this choice). Harry’s weird elf with all the socks was ultimately the one to do it, as the rest of the elves were extremely conflicted about their desire to take care of a student in need, and their need to avoid Hermione’s “well-meaning” attempts to “free” them at all costs. 

When George heard that Hermione was in the hospital wing, he may have enlisted Fred’s assistance in cornering Malfoy and his cronies, trapping them in a broom-cupboard for what wound up being nine or so hours. (George was thankful that Fred did not ask many questions on why George was so eager to do so, mostly because George was not sure he knew the answer himself). 

\- - - 

The first task was quickly approaching and Hermione’s stress level was skyrocketing. Harry and Ron appeared to be on even worse terms than they were before, asking her to serve as a bloody owl between the two of them, and Sirius had written Harry back, which was not as helpful as Hermione had been hoping. On top of that, Hermione was trying to deal with the aftermath of that Skeeter woman’s article. 

If it had been in any other context, Hermione would have been flattered to be referred to as “stunningly pretty” but the “Muggle-born girl” that followed, and the fact that just about the only true thing in the article was the face that, yes, Harry did indeed have green eyes, was really putting a damper on the backhanded compliment. 

To be entirely honest, part of the reason Hermione wanted Ron and Harry to work things out was that she was becoming increasingly frustrated by Harry’s constant presence. The friendship between the three of them had a certain balance that had to be maintained. Hermione, as someone who tended to observe her own social interactions from a third person, academic angle, knew this. 

She knew that the boys would need her for homework. She knew that she would usually sit with them in classes and at meals. She knew that the common room was their main hang out spot, that she would spend time with her friends on Hogsmeade weekends and over the holidays. But outside of that, Hermione was on her own. 

This was how their friendship worked. She considered Harry her best friend, but she knew very well that Harry and Ron would always be each other’s number one. Hermione knew this and she had come to terms with it. But now that Harry and Ron were on the outs, she found herself spending far more time with Harry than she was used to, and apparently more time than she liked. 

He was everywhere. He walked with her to class. He sat with her at meals. He came with her to the library. She had no time to herself. He was always interrupting her reading and her studying. He was almost worse than that Krum idiot who had all those girls flocking to him in the library, making far more noise than was necessary. Overall, Hermione could not wait for life to get back to normal, or at least to the usual madness that generally passes for normal when you’re friends with Harry Potter.


	4. Chapter 4

Sunday morning found Hermione having a relaxing breakfast with Ginny Weasley. _“I really must spend more time with her_ ,” she found herself thinking, watching the red-head speak animatedly about something or other. “ _The boys have me nearly tearing my hair out_.”

 Just as this thought passed through her head, Harry skidded to a halt rather unceremoniously behind her. Hermione sighed, realizing her the calm beginning to her day was officially finished. She scraped the last bit of porridge from her bowl, and allowed her friend to pull her from the great hall, waving an apologetic hand at Ginny as she went.

 -           -           -          

Of course. Of course, it would be dragons. It’s not as if they might have come up with some sort of reasonable task to start the tournament off, perhaps a boggart, Harry could definitely handle that, or maybe even dueling the other champions, there were four of them now, that could absolutely work. But nooooo, the idiots in charge of this ridiculous tournament _had_ to choose one of the most dangerous creatures known to wizard kind.

To be entirely honest though, who was she kidding? As worried as Hermione was about this idiotic choice to have a _14 year old_ combat a dragon, she knew this was far from the worst thing they could have come up with. Dragons are dangerous, but at least now there was a bit of time to prepare.

 Hermione met Harry’s eyes for the first time since he mentioned his knowledge of the dragons, taking a deep calming breath.

“So what is your plan?”

 “My plan?”

 “Yes, Harry! Your plan! You know the only thing that is going to keep you from getting killed when you walk into that stupid arena!”

 “…” Harry, looking rather contrite, quite obviously had not thought at all about any sort of plan, despite having known about the dragons for over 10 hours.

 “Oh, come on Harry! I won’t always be here to do this part for you. You have to learn to think things through yourself.”

 “Well it wasn’t the only thing on my mind Hermione!”

 “What do you mean?”

 Harry proceeded to tell her about his whole conversation with Sirius the night before, skimming over his confrontation with Ron and focusing himself entirely on the Karkaroff issue.

 While extremely concerned about the prospect of a Death Eater in their midst, Hermione still felt the dragon was the most pressing issue. She could do some research about Karkaroff in the coming days, it’s not as if he was going to come out and Avada Harry in front of people after putting so much effort into getting him in the tournament. Pushing that issue to an unoccupied corner of her mind, Hermione focused back on Harry.

 “Let’s just try and keep you alive until Tuesday evening,” she said pleading with him, “and then we can worry about Karkaroff.”

 The pair spent the next hour walking around the lake, trying to come up with what supposedly “simple” spell could be used to subdue a dragon. Coming up with nothing, they moving their quest to the library. With Harry collecting books and Hermione reading at her usual rate, they made it through a surprising amount of research in record time. Unfortunately, they were still coming up blank. And to make matters worse, the Bulgarian champion had shown up.

 “Oh no, he’s back again, why can’t he read on his stupid ship?” Hermione growled under her breath, watching the older boy slouch into the library. He slumped into a distant chair, directly in her line of sight. He was always doing that, almost too often for it to be considered a coincidence, and to what end Hermione had no idea. Perhaps he thought by sitting where he could see her, he might be able to spy on Harry to gain an advantage? Truly, she did not know what was going on with that surly, slightly intimidating boy. But what she did know, whether he was spying on Harry of not, is that they had to leave, and do it fast.

“Come on, Harry, we’ll go back to the common room . . . his fan club’ll be here in a moment, twittering away. . . .” Hermione groaned. Too late, within seconds the aisles were swarmed with a gang of girls giggling and whispering to each other as they tiptoed closer toward Krum. Hermione grabbed all the books she thought might be useful, threw them into Harry’s arms, slung her bag over her shoulder, and pushed the two of them toward the door as fast as she possible could.

 -           -           -          

When Harry came tearing into Herbology three minutes late, Hermione quickly realized something was up.

 “Hermione,” he whispered as he slid into a spot next to her, “I need you to help me.”

She felt her teeth begin to grind. He was ridiculous. “What d’you think I’ve been trying to do, Harry?” she hissed back, aggressively pruning back the branches of the Flutterby Bush in front of her.

“Hermione, I need to learn how to do a Summoning Charm properly by tomorrow afternoon.”

 She raised an eyebrow before turning back to the task at hand. “ _That actually has some potential. Why didn’t I think of that?_ ”

-           -           -          

Time was of the essence, and so, when Herbology let out, Hermione pulled Harry into an open classroom and began drilling him on the Accio charm. It was not going well.

Hermione was trying her hardest to get him to concentrate, but the more frustrated he got, the more uncontrolled his spells became, causing stress to build up in loads. She could feel their personalities beginning to clash, but she could not think of anything else to do with the time they had left. Eventually, when the lunch break ended, Harry asked her to skip their next classes and keep practicing. Eying the redness of his face and the trembling of his wand hand, Hermione felt it would only make things worse if they stayed. A break was most definitely needed, and so she insisted they both go to class.

“ _Nothing better to give a brain a break than that nonsense Trelawney’s always babbling on about._ ”          

They began after dinner, practicing until after midnight, only leaving the classroom when Peeves became too much of a nuisance, and continued in the common room. Harry finally caught on at some point between one and two, and Hermione began to feel as if she could breathe again. Unfortunately, Harry was once again starting to doubt himself.

“The Firebolt’s going to be much farther away than the stuff in here, it’s going to be in the castle, and I’m going to be out there on the grounds. . . .”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Hermione insisted, absolutely refusing to show her slight bit of doubt to Harry, who needed all the confidence he could get “Just as long as you’re concentrating really, really hard on it, it’ll come.”

She looked at her watch, they had to be awake in five hours to get to classes.  “Harry, we’d better get some sleep . . . you’re going to need it.”

-           -           -          

George scanned the benches ahead of him, spotting a clump of ginger-headed people in one of the first few rows. As he came closer he realized there was a single head of bushy, brown hair at the end of all those red heads. Changing course without a thought, George came around on Hermione’s open side and dropped into the seat next to her. George raised an eyebrow when he saw that his twin had claimed the seat on her other side.

“ _Where the hell is Ron?_ ” he thought. Followed quickly by, “ _Oh for shit’s sake, what has that little idiot done now?”_

George shook his head at his younger brother’s continued stupidity before glancing over at Hermione. Now that he was sitting next to her, George realized he hadn’t seen much of Hermione over the past several weeks. Really this shouldn’t be all that much of a surprise. He was a sixth-year while Hermione was only in fourth, so they obviously didn’t have any classes together. He spent most of his time at quidditch practice, in his dormitory (coming up with more joke products with Fred), or in the common room. Out of those three places, Hermione could really only be in the common room, but she was only there when she wasn’t in the library or off gallivanting with tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum. So really, what should be surprising is how often he sees her usually.

George looked over at Hermione, ready to crack some one-liner about Harry fighting with a white-haired dragon on a regular basis, ready to cheer her up the only way he could think of, but when he saw her face he changed his mind. He couldn’t believe what he was actually thinking this, but now was not a time for jokes.

Hermione looked absolutely terrified. There were dark circles under her eyes, indicating a night with little sleep. Her bottom lip was caught between her teeth and looked about three seconds away from bleeding. Her foot was making the bench squeak it was bouncing so forcefully, and her hands were gripping each other in her lap so tightly they were turning white.

“Hey,” George tried softly, so as not to draw anyone else’s attention. “Hermione, hey…”

She turned to face him and his breath caught slightly in his throat. Her chocolate brown eyes, usually sparkling with happiness, or mischief, or even righteous fury, revealed an emotion he had never even thought possible in her—helplessness. Hermione Granger, the most intelligent, powerful, and independent witch he had ever met was feeling helpless, and that look on her face was quite possibly the worst thing George had ever seen in his life.

Without even a second’s hesitation, George’s hands shot out, prying her clenched fists apart and taking one of hands between both of his, holding it tightly.

“Hermione,” he said softly, looking directly into her eyes, “He’s going to be fine. I’m sure both you and he have done everything you possibly could to get him ready for this moment. He knows what to do. For Merlin’s sake, he’s Harry-freaking-Potter, You-Know-Who couldn’t take him out, a dragon is nothing compared to that!”

The furrow between her eyebrows lessened slightly as she nodded slowly, seemingly trying to convince herself of the truth in George’s statement. She was still chewing on her lip and bouncing her leg up and down, but both were occurring at a much more subdued pace, so George counted that as a win.

After that there was no more time for talking, as Ludo Bagman’s voice began booming from all angles, signaling the beginning of the first task. George held Hermione’s hand through the first three champions, rubbing his thumb up and down, trying his best to sooth her nerves.

While she watched the contestants, George found himself watching Hermione. He saw her eyes light up with interest when Cedric transfigured a rock into a dog, and felt her whole body bring when the dragon fire reached him. She snorted, rolling her eyes a bit at Fleur’s fairly successful attempts at lulling her dragon into a trance-like sleep. She seemed somewhat impressed with the conjunctivitis hex Krum used, but seemed physically pained at the crunch the dragon’s eggs made when they were trampled. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, it was Harry’s turn.

All of Hermione’s tension came back with a vengeance as soon as his head of messy, black hair popped through the tent’s opening. Hermione tore her hand from George’s grasp, seemingly unaware of her actions, and brought both hands up towards her face. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, with the heels of her hands braced against her chin. Her fingers were curled nearly into claws, and her nails appeared to be digging into her cheeks painfully.

George met Fred’s eyes behind Hermione’s back and they each placed a hand on her back, hoping to provide what little comfort they could, and turned their eyes back to the arena.

Harry did phenomenally, as George expected, probably due to a decent amount of Hermione’s input, and when he stumbled to safety, clutching his golden egg, Hermione spun towards George with a look of pure, unadulterated joy and relief on her face. She threw her arms around his neck pulling him close, and for an instant, everything was perfect.

Then she dropped back to her normal height, and spun too her other side to hug Fred in the same manner. A pinprick of something heavy and upsetting settled in the bottom of George’s gut as he watched Hermione hug his twin with equal enthusiasm.

“ _Well that can’t be good_ ,” thought George with a resigned sigh. As Hermione once again dropped back to the ground, this time grabbing her bag and dashing off through the crowd, assumedly towards wherever Harry was at that moment, George dropped heavily back onto the bench.

Had he looked over to Fred at that very moment, he would have seen a face, identical to his except in expression, looking down at him with slightly raised eyebrows, a smirk slowly quirking into place.

-           -           - 

Hermione was so happy she could barely think. She tore off full-speed towards the medical tent, not even hesitating to apologize to everyone she bumped into on the way. She thought Ron might be behind her, but she wasn’t going to slow down to figure that out right now. Harry was alive! He had done it! He was going to be okay, everything was going to work out.

She came barreling into the text, only to slam to an abrupt halt when she saw those wonderful bright green eyes right in from of her.

“Harry! You were brilliant!” she all but squeaked, unable to catch her breath from her mad dash across the stands. “You were amazing! You really were!”

But by then Harry was looking over her shoulder. She turned and saw Ron, the three of them the in the closet proximity they had been in for weeks. Ron was paler than normal, his freckles standing out boldly against the bloodlessness of his face.

“Harry,” said Ron completely serious, “whoever put your name in that goblet — I — I reckon they’re trying to do you in!”

“ _Oh God Harry_ ,” thought Hermione, hope beginning to well up inside, “ _He’s trying, don’t let your angst muck this up!_ ”

“Caught on, have you?” said Harry coldly. “Took you long enough.”

“ _Come ON!_ ” cried Hermione to herself.

Ron started to open his mouth, looking vaguely like he had when he was vomiting slugs, and Hermione began to smile, knowing everything was going to be okay. Harry stopped Ron before he could even begin to apologize, and Hermione was filled with pride in her boys and how much they were growing up.

It was all too much, Harry was this close to dying, and Ron hadn’t been speaking to him, and Hermione had been stuck in the middle, and now it seemed things were going to be back to normal and the adrenaline that had been holding her together suddenly crashed, and she burst into tears.

“There’s nothing to cry about!” Harry told her, like the unobservant idiot she loved him or being.

“You two are so stupid!” Hermione found herself shouting, stamping her foot on the ground in an uncontrolled expulsion of energy, tears running down her face. She suddenly sprung forward, gripping them both tightly to her, then sprinted out as fast as she could, hoping to get back to the castle before anyone saw her bright red and puffy. As she ran, tears still falling, Hermione felt a small smile beginning to rise.

“ _Everything is_ _going to be fine.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the amazing response on the last chapter! As always, reviews are wonderful! This time, please let me know your thoughts on SPEW, I'm considering bringing it in (soon-ish) but would love to know what you guys think. 
> 
> Love,  
> Rhonnie


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